Assimilation

How to spell assimilation

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce assimilation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assimilation mean?

1. nounThe process of absorbing people, ideas, or things into a larger group or body so that they become part of it.
2. nounThe bodily process by which digested food or nutrients are absorbed and converted into living tissue.

Assimilation in a sentence

• The report studied the assimilation of new immigrants into the local workforce.

• The textbook explains the assimilation of nutrients through the wall of the small intestine.

• Successful assimilation of the two companies took nearly three years.

• Poor assimilation of iron can lead to anaemia despite a rich diet.

Where does assimilation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb assimilare, which meant 'to make like' or 'to render similar', built from the prefix ad- (meaning 'to' or 'toward', here softened to as- before the s) and the adjective similis, meaning 'like' or 'resembling'. The Latin noun assimilatio described the act of making one thing resemble another. English took the word in through Old French and Latin scholarly writing in the late Middle Ages, at first in the physical sense of the body turning food into living tissue, that is, making the nourishment 'like' the body itself. From there it broadened into the figurative senses we use today: absorbing ideas into the mind, or absorbing a person or group into a wider culture. The same similis root gives us 'similar', 'simile', and 'resemble', and noticing that 'simil' core is a handy way to remember the single m and the double s, since the doubling comes only from the ad- prefix meeting the s.

How the word is built

• as- (form of ad-: to, toward)
• simil (root similis: like, similar)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)